


Just a Projection

by weezly14



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Doctor's Perspective, F/M, Post Episode: s02e13 Doomsday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 02:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weezly14/pseuds/weezly14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a tagfic that pointed out that the events of Bad Wolf Bay occurred in the console room for the Doctor. "Sometimes he thinks he sees her out of the corner of his eye."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Projection

            He doesn’t really have time to recover. One moment he’s seeing her—just a projection, sure, but it’s _live_ , it’s _real_ , it’s proof that somewhere in the universe she is _alive_ , so very much alive, and it’s been weeks since he saw her face so he takes it all in for the few minutes he has with her—and then she’s gone, the gap has closed, she has cut out like when the telly switches off because it’s lost power, only there’s a sun still burning for her so it’s not power that’s lost. It’s just the universe righting itself, because apparently the new right is the Doctor _without_ Rose, and that is so very _wrong_ he can barely catch his breath.

            But he doesn’t really have time to recover because one minute the image of Rose is standing across from him in the console room and the next a ginger woman in wedding dress is.

            (Maybe it is a loss of power.)

            (His.)

\--- 

            Donna said no.

            Rose said no once, too. Then she didn’t.

            He walks back into the TARDIS, punches in coordinates at random. Tries to forget what her laugh sounded like in this room. The last time he heard her voice in this space. 

            Donna said no and Rose said forever, once.

            (She said a lot of things, though.)

\---

            Sometimes he thinks he sees her out of the corner of his eye. When he sits on the jump seat, as he walks around the center console, as he tinkers. She is wearing a leather jacket and her hair is blowing in the wind that doesn’t exist in this room and is otherwise not moving.

            When he turns to look she’s gone because she wasn’t there, she was never there, it was a projection, is still a projection—the same projection, playing on loop in his mind. The room is still empty. Rose is still gone.

            Sometimes he thinks he sees her out of the corner of his eye and sometimes he thinks he hears her words echo across the void.

            ( _I love you_.)

\---

            It’s good, that the gap came out where it did. Norway. What’s Rose ever going to do in Norway? Nothing, that’s what. She will probably never visit that beach ever again, and she shouldn’t have to. She shouldn’t have to relive their last goodbye over and over.

            He hates the universe sometimes, but this time he loves it because it at least had the decency to locate that moment on a godforsaken bit of sand in Norway, a bit of sand she will never have to face ever again if she doesn’t want to. If he believed in things like luck he would say it was lucky, but he doesn’t believe in luck. He believes in—

            Still. He wishes he could have been so lucky.

\---

            Sometimes he finds himself standing in the exact spot he was standing when he last saw her face.

            Sometimes he finishes his sentence.

            Somewhere across the void, he hopes she can hear it.

\---

            It gets easier.

            He has Martha. He has Jack. 

            ( _On your own?_ )

            (Not anymore.)

\---

            _On your own?_  

            (Again.)

\---

            _Still lost?_

            Yes. But no. Not lost, but—still. Across the void. Living a life, day after day. She is alive, she is safe, she is—

            She is not the lost one.  

            He is.

            (He hears her voice echo through the console room when he is alone. Or maybe it’s just in his head.)

            _Still lost._

\---

            He hates the Daleks always and he hates them now especially but he can’t find the energy to back up his feelings because he is _alive_ and the _same_ and Rose is _here_ , in the console room, in the TARDIS, in the flesh. Not a projection, not an echo, not a memory. Just her, just Rose, in the TARDIS, as it should be. She’s looking at him all unsure and he doesn’t let his spirits sink, just keeps talking, just keeps looking at her and—

            _You’re still you?_

            And—

            _I’m still me._

            And she’s hugging him, glorious and real and _here_ , pressing a kiss to his shoulder that burns through his layers. He hasn’t smiled this widely since—well, since her. He’d given up hope that he would ever see her again, here in this room, but if he believes in one thing, he believes in her. He should’ve known better than to give up on Rose Tyler.

            He might hate the universe sometimes and the Daleks always but somehow they have brought him to this moment with Rose Tyler, in the console room, so. Not a bad day.

\---

            Except it is.

\---

            He takes her back to Bad Wolf Bay. This time when they say goodbye they’re both on the beach, though. She’s still in leather, still got the wind blowing through her hair. He could touch her this time, but he doesn’t. He could finish his sentence this time.

            He doesn’t.

            He leaves her on the beach again, only this time it isn’t a quick cut like when the telly switches off because it’s lost power. This time it’s an intentional slow fade, like the lights dimming at the end of a play.

            Donna’s an intentional slow fade, too. In the console room. Bloody console room.

            He hates the universe sometimes.

            (Always.)

\---

            He dies and he is reborn and the pain has changed. He carries is differently, now.

            Still. He changes the console room.

\---

            It gets easier. 

 


End file.
